


After

by goldenretrieval



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 03:24:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18683149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenretrieval/pseuds/goldenretrieval
Summary: Snapshots of Peter Parker's life after Endgame. Growing up sucks.





	After

It’s an hour after.

Peter’s hands shake as dials his aunt’s number on Pepper’s phone.

Everyone keeps talking about five years. 

But it couldn’t have been that long. Hadn’t it only been this morning that Peter was in Central Park and Mr. Stark was yelling at him to save the wizard? 

Everyone keep talking about five years, but that was impossible. 

Happy drives them to a house, and he tells Peter Mr. Stark lives-  _ lived _ there but that can’t be right because it’s so far from the city. 

It’s next to a lake and has a playset in the yard and a porch that Peter imagines Mr. Stark sitting on while wearing an overpriced bathrobe and drinking black coffee. 

Everyone keeps talking about five years, and Peter thinks about how five years can be an entire lifetime. 

Rhodey gives him a cardboard box. It’s worn and dusty from being stored in the back of the ridiculously sized garage. Inside are some of Peter’s things, his tattered gray sweatpants and Midtown High t shirts and a pair of old web shooters and even unfinished homework. 

Peter wonders if he should email his physics teacher and ask for an extension on his project and then he remembers-

Five years.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s one week after. 

Peter stares at the face of a four year old girl and tries not to think about how she is all this universe has left of Tony Stark. 

Her name is Morgan and she is smart and stubborn and all of the things her father was and more. 

They talk about legos and science and Peter thinks taking her into the lab one day, just like Mr. Stark had with him. 

And then he remembers all that is left of the old Avengers compound is burnt rubble and ash.

He wonders who will build the new Avengers compound. 

He wonders if he’s even an Avenger anymore. 

He wonders if anyone is. 

Peter smiles at Pepper and tells her he and May are doing well and he is going back to school soon and he is adjusting fine, thank you. 

Later, when he is free falling from the tallest building in Manhattan, waiting until the last possible second to shoot out a web, he half expects to get a call from Mr. Stark, who would be exasperated and angry but mostly just worried. 

No one calls.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s three months after. 

Peter is about to start his senior year of high school. 

His sophomore year homecoming date, Liz, is 22 and just moved back into the city about to start medical school at Columbia. 

She texts him, asking if he wants to catch up and grab lunch. 

Peter stares at his phone screen and considers it. And then he deletes her number from his phone. 

Applying to colleges is hard. Writing essays are the worst part. 

He wants to write about being Spider-Man, but he can’t. He wants to write about his Stark Internship but he can’t do that either, not really. 

Peter stares at a blank word document and wonders if the only time he’s worth writing about is when he’s wearing a mask. 

He’s still Spider-Man, but it’s not the same. 

Some days, it almost feels the same. He swings around New York, making jokes and punching bad guys. He stops car accidents, he catches criminals, he helps a group of little kids find their lost dog. 

But some days, it’s impossible to pretend. He’ll come home bloody and bruised and concussed and Mr. Stark won’t be there to say  _ swing by the tower, I know you’re hurt.  _

So Peter learns. He learns to be more careful. He learns to stitch up his own wounds. He learns to like the being alone. 

There’s no baby monitor. There’s no training wheels. There’s just Peter. 

He still looks out for the little guy, but this time there isn’t anyone looking out for him.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s six months after. 

Happy and May are dating, officially. 

They actually have been for a while, they just didn’t tell anyone. For Peter, It’s only been three years since his uncle died. 

For May, it’s been eight. 

So Happy takes Peter to a nice dinner, just the two of them and he tells Peter all about how he doesn’t want to replace his father, or Ben, or Mr. Stark-

And that’s when Peter realizes where this conversation is going. 

He excuses himself, pukes up his dinner in the bathroom, and then returns to the table and tells Happy he has his blessing. 

Peter doesn’t want things to keep changing, but they do. 

He finally texts Liz back (he gets her number from MJ) and they catch up and grab lunch and his gut twists at how  _ grown up _ she is. Sometimes he wishes he had a time machine. 

The holidays come and go. 

Things are always the worst this time of year. 

The cold and the snow always remind him of that fateful night, either three or eight years ago, depends who you ask.

Sometimes Peter can still feel the weight of Ben’s head in his lap, lifeless eyes staring up. Blood covering his hands, pooling around him and staining the sidewalk. 

So he does things to distract himself. He goes to parties, he drinks, he smokes. 

He has sex with MJ.

He decides he loves her, but he knows the people he loves always end up getting hurt one way or another. 

So he doesn’t tell her.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s one year after. 

Peter almost misses his own graduation. 

He had been fighting the crazy Rhino guy downtown, but he makes it just in time for the end of MJ’s valedictorian speech. 

She pauses just for a second while he takes his seat, and as they lock eyes she gives him the saddest smile he’s ever seen. 

Peter wonders how it happened, how everything changed so much in just a few short years. 

Happy and May watch him graduate and Peter is so  _ so  _ grateful, but he can’t help the lump in his throat that forms when he thinks of everyone who couldn’t. 

He walks across the stage and shakes hands with his principal, suddenly feeling old and young all at once. 

Peter gets into some schools, but he doesn’t get into MIT.

He understands why. Being a part time superhero means sometimes he doesn’t always have time to study for AP calculus as much as he should. 

He doesn’t think about how disappointed Mr. Stark would be. 

He enrolls in Columbia’s biophysics program. Its best he stays in the city, anway. New York needs him. He can’t just leave. 

A lot of his friends do, but Peter is used to saying goodbye. 

Ned moves to Cambridge in the fall and he promises he’ll visit the city all the time and if Peter ever needs him, he’ll be there. 

What Ned doesn’t realize is Peter learned to stop needing other people a long time ago.

 

 

* * *

 

It’s three years after. 

Peter likes college. 

He likes the independence. He likes how his professors don’t care if he comes to class as long as he does well on the tests. He likes how his roommates don’t care if he’s gone for most hours of the night. 

Peter smiles as he remembers the days of his 12 pm weekday curfew, strictly enforced by May and somewhat enforced by Mr. Stark. 

It seems like a lifetime ago, and he thinks maybe it was. 

Things are so different now it makes Peter’s head spin. 

He has a real internship now, thanks to Pepper. He actually thinks about his future once in a while too. 

Happy and May are married, the wedding was small but it felt right. 

Morgan was the flower girl and Peter walked May down the aisle. He swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled as he gave away the woman he loved more than anything. 

He took MJ as his date. She squeezed his hand the whole ceremony and he thought about asking her to marry him right then and there before immediately decided against it. 

_ We have time _ , he thinks,  _ we can wait.  _

Until one night, when MJ is thrown out of a building by Spider-Man’s villain of the week and Peter  _ barely _ manages to catch her. 

But he does. 

He catches her. 

Later, in between his tears and apologies, he pops the question. He doesn’t have a ring, he doesn’t have nearly enough money to buy a ring, but she says yes.

Things are so different now, but he is learning to be okay with that.  


 

 

* * *

 

It’s ten years after. 

Peter is twenty-seven years old, an age that used to seem so far away. 

He is getting used it, this changing world that he lives in. 

There are people who come and go. There are people who stick around a little bit longer. 

Slowly, he learns to accept impermanence as the only constant. 

Peter has a family of his own now. He and MJ have been married five years, with a little girl on the way. Sometimes he thinks about how much he loves them and his chest gets tight and it feels hard to breathe. 

It could all go away in an instant, Peter knows that more than anyone. 

He has lost so much, he still has so much left to lose. 

Some nights when he can’t sleep, he swings through Manhattan and lands on the roof of the old Avengers tower. It belongs to someone else now, but Peter doesn’t mind. 

He stares up at the sky, just like he did all those years ago on Titan as he crumbled to dust with half the universe.

What Peter doesn’t tell anyone, not even MJ, is that he thinks he came back different. He doesn’t feel like the same starry eyed kid who stuck to the side of a spaceship without a second thought. 

When he looks at the face of Morgan Stark, so smart and stubborn at all of fourteen years old, he wonders if he was ever that young. 

And then he remembers.

He remembers the feeling of leaping off a skyscraper for the very first time, a new pair of web-shooters being the only thing between him and certain death. 

He remembers the long nights spent in  Mr. Stark’s lab, ignoring his physics homework and eating copious amounts of pizza with the man he admired so much.  

He remembers the pride that swelled in his chest when that same man looked him in the eyes and said  _ kid, you’re an avenger now. _

Peter almost laughs at the memory. Being an Avenger lost its charm a long time ago. 

The world needs Spider-Man now, he knows. But things change. 

Maybe one day he can take the mask off for good. 

He thinks he would like that.

 

 

* * *

 


End file.
